Gerard Sarnat won the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, has been nominated for Pushcarts and authored four collections: HOMELESS CHRONICLES (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014) and Melting The Ice King (2016) which included work published by Oberlin, Brown, Columbia, Johns Hopkins and in Gargoyle, Margie, Main Street Rag, MiPOesias, New Delta Review, Brooklyn Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Voices Israel, Tishman Review, Suisun Valley Review, Burningwood Review, Fiction Southeast, Junto, Tiferet plus featured in New Verse News, Eretz, Avocet, LEVELER, tNY, StepAway, Bywords, Floor Plan, Good-Man-Project, Anti-Heroin-Chic, Poetry Circle, Fiction Southeast and Tipton Review. “Amber Of Memory” was the single poem chosen for my 50th college reunion symposium on Bob Dylan. Mount Analogue selected Sarnat’s sequence, KADDISH FOR THE COUNTRY, for pamphlet distribution on Inauguration Day 2017 as part of the Washington DC and nationwide Women’s Marches. For Huffington Post/other reviews, readings, publications, interviews; visit GerardSarnat.com. Harvard/Stanford educated, Gerry’s worked in jails, built/staffed clinics for the marginalized, been a CEO and Stanford Med professor. Married for a half century, Gerry has three kids and four grandkids so far.gerardsarnat.com

Allahu Akbar ​

After last Ash Wednesday happenedValentine's Day woohooJeez time flied – guys up in that sky-- JC Pesach sup with brosGood Friday when stock exchangesclose as matter of catholictradition while those original Jewishmonotheists’re replaced byChristians then a half millennia laterAbraham’s youngest branchbegins which now celebrates Sabbathprotesting new Eretz IsraelGaza security rules: 16 Muslims deadright before Easter Sunday’sResurrection occurred on April Foolsif gluten-free matzo ain’t grossthough non-GMO spelt grain’s worse-- I’m a matzochrist who derivespleasure from the bread of affliction.

​Passover Divining Rod haiku

​Fixin’ To Die Golden Anniversary Rag: 1967-2017

​In 1969 I married my best friend’s datefrom two years earlier right before San Francisco’s Summer of Lovewhen he graduated from what we considered “Berkeley” –

which is what those idealists who smoked Acapulco Goldand took full advantage of newly-minted birth control pillsand went to Winterland plus the Avalon Ballroomto rock out to Quicksilver Messenger Service or Janis Joplin’sBig Brother and The Holding Company or Jefferson Airplaneas well as Country Joe and the Fish decrying Vietnamafter which, holy mackerel, this Stanford medical studentwent to the barricades to burn his draft cardthen almost get brains blown out holding a gunto the head of a Marine driving a bus of recruits to Oakland’s Federal Building

-- instead of calling the great northern California university “Cal”which is what the cohort our age who fell on the Silent Generationside of the fence called the same schoolwhere they got a world-class classroom educationwhile my best friend and his date educioed the Free Speech Movementwe thought was a Jeffersonian democracy silver bulletthat had blown the doors off status quo mealy-mouthed bourgeois flatulencebut instead simply opened the window a revisionist assassination-bloodieddecadent sliver before it closed only to leave us stuckinside Big Brother’s consumer mobile with the Trumpian blues again and again.

​Bad News Good News

​Perhaps half of the timeApplePay isn’t acceptedor does not take plusis often accompanied bydisgruntled younger folkin lengthening queueshissing something aboutyou goddamn old folk.

Both renewed credit cardsthat for the last six decadeswere mailed in such discreteenvelopes they got tossed or maybe never arrived butthen which finally came withexpiration dates now when I’m50-50 one of those in our 80s.

​Coy haiku

MOST SIGNIFICANT YEARS OF MY LIFE ​

​i. 1960

My (step)dad, although a somewhat legendary memberof the Jewish mob and founder of the El Rancho Vegaswho died suddenly from a massive heart attack, nonethelesswas the only father I knew plus best one since none of Mom’sfour subsequent husbands could tie his shoes -- much less fill them.

​ii. 1967

At first it had to do with Vietnam -- in my dummkopf casejust surviving holding a gun to the head of a marine drivinga busload of recruits on 880 to the Oakland Induction Center.

Earlier that year I’d left intriguing but often alien Victorian Boston.Came back west -- specifically to San Francisco Bay areaduring the Summer of Love, as it were.

Just in the nick to fall on the “forward-looking”rather than silent generation side of the proverbial clichéd fence-- and soon enough fall for the love of my life.

She showed how to be human/e and gave mea family that remains our highest priority and source of joy --along with our share of sadness.

This was provoked watching a doc on the making of 1967’sepic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band -- looks of Paul,John and George Martin’s ties; they too could’ve taken frostier paths.

​Penny For Unsolicited Thoughts

My life has intertwined with Berserkeley.Diverting there from Victorian Harvardcirca 1963 for virginal toke. Smashing busheadlights on 880 to delay Marine recruitsfrom Vietnam deployment to meeting my wifeof 50 years to CEOing HMOs to now burying friends.